Wednesday, 19 August 2015

It is unsurprising to hear
that Lawrence Connor’s new production of Miss Saigon broke box office records on
its first day of sales. Boubil and Schönberg’s musical can only be described as
epic in all proportions yet still manages to produce a truly superb show.

The musical famously takes its
central ideas from the opera Madame Butterfly, yet transfers the location to
1970s Vietnam as Saigon falls, making the doomed relationship between bar worker
Kim, and American GI, Chris.

Eva Noblezada (Kim) and Sangwoong Jo (Thuy)

Eva Noblezada shone as Kim in
her professional and West End debut, and is clearly deserving of her
Whatsonstage Award for Best Actress in a Musical. Her desperation in caring for
her son, and in discovering she is doomed to never be with Chris, was positively
heart-breaking.

Chris Peluso, as Chris, sung well
but it was hard to like his character. In contrast, Ethan Le Phong (Thuy) was
superbly determined for Kim to return his love. Hugh Maynard (John) left a chilling
and poignant message in Act 2 opener, Bui Doi, reminding us how that the true
effects of war goes further than just who lives and who dies.

The show was stolen, however,
by Jon Jon Briones as The Engineer. Having featured in the original production
in 1989, Briones’ Engineer was vulgar and brash, with his rendition of The
American Dream a visual masterpiece.

Ho Chi Minh City. The Morning of the Dragon.

Totie Driver and Matt Kinley’s
set design was superb, ranging from the neon slickness of Bangok to the
extraordinary and impressive scenes at the fall of Saigon featuring the
world-famous helicopter which was even more impressive than expected.

What is clear from the new
production Miss Saigon is that it if more orientated on the political nature of
the musical. The capitalist ventures of America seem mirrored in the doomed entrepreneurship
of The Engineer, whilst Kim kills herself in order to ensure her son gets a
better life in America. It is a real shame that a musical that takes itself
seriously enough to carry such heavyweight themes so well is to leave London in
February 2016, but this is definitely a spectacle not to miss.

Monday, 17 August 2015

Earlier this month (August),
the National Youth Theatre made the decision to cancel their production of Omar
El-Khairy’s new play, Homegrown. El-Khairy
and, director, Nadia Fall, said that voices had been “silenced”, in regards to
the cancellation of the play inspired by three young girls from Bethnal Green
travelling to Syria to join Islamic State.

Whilst some will argue that in
light of the rise of Islamic extremism, it was appropriate to cancel the play
in light of any potential fallout, the move by the NYT has been widely condemned
by arts figures including Donmar Warehouse Artistic Director, Josie Rourke, and
David Lan, who is at the helm of the Young Vic who described the censorship as “a
troubling moment for British theatre and freedom of expression".

It is undeniably that the
censorship of arts restricts intelligent debate, reduces the quality of work
created and binds the artists to a production which often does not fit their
vision; however, this has not stopped the squeeze on challenging and thought
provoking work since it was considered “thoroughly dangerous” for Shakespeare
to prevent tyrannical Richard III in anything but a negative light.

The bard himself often
pandered to his patrons, with some historians believing that the inclusion of genealogical
information linking King James I – Shakespeare’s patron at the time – to have
descended from the line of Banquo, to fuel the King’s interest in the topic.

In stark contrast, Mike
Barlett’s 2014 play, King Charles III,
depicted the death of Elizabeth II, before seeing Charles, the new king, refuse
to grant royal assent, the resulting dissolution of parliament, widespread
rioting and the usurping of his throne by his son, Prince William. Barlett’s
open critique did prompt, according to Guardian critic Michael Billington, ““titillating
shock”, it’s Olivier Award for Best New Play and transfers to the West End and
Broadway demonstrate the success that a controversial play can offer.

Unfortunately, some plays do
not even get the opportunity to prove themselves. In 2004, Gupreet Kaur Bhatti
published her play Bhetzi, performed
in Birmingham. The play sparked controversy, due to a scene set in a Sikh
temple which conveyed rape, physical abuse, homosexuality and murder. Violent
protests by some members of the Sikh community at the theatre led to the
production being cancelled.

The actions of the protestors
were condemned by numerous industry figures, including Willy Russell, Richard
Eyre and Shelia Hancock, who in a joint letter, said “we all have the right to
protest peacefully if a work of art offends us. We do not have the right to use
violence and intimidation to prevent that work of art from being seen by
others.”

This was replicated in Brett
Bailey’s Exhibit B. The performance
featured black actors chained as if in the human zoos which were popular during
the 19th and early 20th Centuries in the US and Western Europe. Whilst running
in Edinburgh – a festival which is widely known for the variety and unusual,
sometimes shocking, nature of its theatre – the performance was dubbed a
“masterstroke”; however, upon transferring to the Barbican in September 2014
faced an enormous backlash. A petition calling for the “racist” production to
be cancelled received over 20,000 signatures, before protests on the opening
night led to the Barbican cancelling the run of Exhibit B at their venue due to
safety concerns.

With the success of King Charles III and the similarly
controversial, yet popular, The Book of
Mormon flying the flag for risqué and brash theatre, we must wonder how Exhibit B, Bhetzi and Homeland would have fared. The really
tragic thing is that we will never know.